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Tiny Rotary Engines Could Power Gadgets with Gasoline

This artist's rendering shows how Clarian's hybrid battery could be put together

Clarian Lab's new generator is a gas-powered battery. That might sound backward in today's world of hybrid cars, but it actually turns out to be a pretty clever device.

The Hybrid Battery is small, ultra-simple rotary engine with just two moving parts. Rotary engines – like the famous Wankel – are highly efficient and do away with pumping pistons an instead use a spinning rotary piston.

Clarian's model runs on gasoline, kerosene, propane, natural gas, ethanol, methanol or hydrogen. In short, pretty much any hydrocarbon-based biofuel you can get your hands on. Since fuels like gas have much higher energy densities than electrical batteries (20-30 times better, according to Clarian), it makes for longer operation and – if you use fuels cells – instant recharging.

The trick that makes Clarian's engine different is that it uses electricity to spin the piston inside the engine and draw in, compress and then ignite the fuel. The subsequent explosion then occurs as normal and the movement is converted to electricity and siphoned-off. The big difference is in using electricity to control the speed of the piston, and therefore control the timing and efficiency. And because the piston itself spins, there's no need for a separate drive shaft to power a generator. This keeps things very small.

It's unlikely you're ever going to put one of these into your laptop, and you'd poison yourself with carbon monoxide if you ever did it indoors anyway. But this could be an efficient and powerful way to replace generators, and even to power cars. Clarian's prototype outputs 5kW of power from its 125cc engine, and weighs around 10kg including the fuel. In the future it actually could be small enough to fit inside handheld gadgets.Clarianlabs Rotary Piston Generator Datasheet [PDF]